5 ms·

How to Fire Frank Lloyd Wright

47 points by anarbadalov 5y ago

lukebutton 5y ago
Interesting piece
anovikov 5y ago
What i find surprising is that the world-renowned architect worked on projects as simple and cheap as that.
- OldHand2018 5y ago
  He spent a lot of time working to make “good” houses more affordable, and was constantly pushing the limits on materials and techniques, which is a large reason why his houses are such maintenance nightmares 70+ years later. https://beltmag.com/frank-lloyd-wright-affordable-housing-chicago/ https://beltmag.com/frank-lloyd-wright-affordable-housing-ch... > Capitalizing on Wright’s Prairie style, regarded as the first truly American style of architecture, the houses—of which there were seven to choose from—were promoted as the quintessential American home. Sherwood Anderson, the nationally acclaimed novelist who at the time was an unknown copywriter, wrote in 1917 for a Tribune ad, “We want you to understand how the genius of this man has made it possible for every home builder to build beautifully without spending more to achieve beauty than he now spends on senseless ugliness.”
  - dtgriscom 5y ago
    There's no maintenance problems mentioned in the link; any other citations? (I have heard that Fallingwater has problems due to its wet environment...)
- dakial1 5y ago
  He probably wasn't. Notice that the communications were always by someone "representing" him, but the most probable isnthat he had an office with a lot of Jr architects who would work on those assignments (with some guidelines and templates done by him, or more senior architects). He probably thought he could scale up and get more volume (and steady revenue stream) working on those small/medium projects as the bigger ones are more rare (even for a big architect). This is an error. Consultancy (I work in the industry) are similar in method to the architecture office, as it depends a lot on people and there is not much you can do to scale up without having to scale your workforce. And even worse, small clients (as we see by the librarian in the story) are usually very high maintenance. For that reason consultancies don't like (or simply don't work) with startups, as they will have less revenue but more work per client, so the scale up is tricky.
  - lelandfe 5y ago
    I visited Taliesin West and saw the huge focus on schooling that FLW had. During the tour I couldn't help but wonder if at least some of the designs attributed to him were instead performed by his students (many of whom were quite talented).
    - caturopath 5y ago
      Taliesin West is so strikingly beautiful -- it's one of the non-natural places I've been most visually captivated, though of course the surrounding and integrated landscape were of course a big part of it.
- SilasX 5y ago
  Side note: Wright is believed to have been the inspiration for the character of Howard Roark in the Fountainhead, whose arc involves him doing a gas station after a skyscraper because the station owner let him do the design how he (Roark) wanted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead#Howard_Roark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead#Howard_Roark
  - adventured 5y ago
    Wright also did a sketch of a house for Rand, that she quite liked and they discussed having built [1]. Here is what Rand said in 1937 prior to The Fountainhead being published in a correspondance with Wright about her book (from an LA Times piece in 2009, linked [2] below): > In 1937 a little-known author named Ayn Rand wrote to revered modernist Frank Lloyd Wright. “Dear Mr. Wright,” her letter of Dec. 12 began, “I am writing a novel about the career of an architect. ... I should like to have the privilege of meeting you and discussing it with you.” > In “The Fountainhead,” modern architecture provided a convenient vehicle for her views. In her 1937 letter, she told Wright that her new novel “is to be the story of an architect who follows his own convictions throughout his life, no matter what society thinks of it or does to him. . . . A man who has an ideal and goes through hell for it. So you can understand why it seems to me that of all men on earth you are the one I must see.” > But she added: “My hero is not you. I do not intend to follow in the novel the events of your life and career. His life will not be yours, nor his work, perhaps not even his artistic ideals. But his spirit is yours -- I think.” [1] https://i.imgur.com/TgjvOjf.jpg https://i.imgur.com/TgjvOjf.jpg [2] https://archive.is/9s5iW https://archive.is/9s5iW
- willyt 5y ago
  Yep. It’s a mistake. People who want an architect designed house for the price of a kit house are going to be disappointed. Especially ones that have massive lists of new wonder products they have been sold on by adverts from manufacturers, they are a nightmare. He shouldn’t have taken the job at all or he should have replied straight away to the first detailed brief saying that it’s not possible. In the UK you can be struck off if you fumble this situation badly, I would imagine that it’s the same in the US?
- runeb 5y ago
  He saw it as a challenge. Here is a good podcast episode about it > Unsure of how to hook such an architect for their modest home, the Jacobses put it to him as a challenge: could he build them a nice house for $5,000 (around $85,000 in today’s dollars)? According to Jacobs, Wright responded that he had waited for decades for someone to ask him just that question. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/usonia/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/usonia/
  - et2o 5y ago
    Thank you for this link! It's worth noting that an $85,000 house back then would be much more extravagent than an $85,000 house today as housing inflation has exceeded official inflation rates. Probably more like a 3-400,000 house if I had to guess. Still, an average house.
dekken_ 5y ago
so long already
ncmncm 5y ago
I would rather fire Frank Gehry.
pelagicAustral 5y ago
Very nice story. It rings a few bells now that I’m in process of designing my own house, and started doing research on materials, energy efficient homes, renewable energy, insulation, etc. It’s quite an experience, overwhelming at times.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  As someone who went through some years of architecture undergrad before changing majors, plus watched my dad draft changes to my childhood built home, a few notes. 1) Time costs money. Building time, change time. Custom increases build time, and plan changes increase engineer / architect time to recertify. Consequently, I would highly recommend starting from a base plan!! (The first exclamation mark I used to register serious recommendation; the second to indicate emphasis.) These plans can be purchased from many sellers, and are already code-compliant. Thus, your problem space can be windowed down to "What do I want to change from the pre-approved plans?" + "What needs be done to realize those changes?" With the remainder of the house being "as is" and requiring minimal plan work. This also avoids things becoming overwhelming, as the building starts "done." And should stay "done" (except for the part you're adjusting currently). 1b) Change expense is highly variable, because you're changing an approved system. Sometimes a wall movement will be no charge. Sometimes same will require a new microlam beam and redesigned joist system to realize. 2) Homes are personal. Architects design homes for a variety of reasons, some of which may overlap your personal needs. Think about how you will live in and use the space (as in, on an average Tuesday), and design for that. Assume you will not completely change your lifestyle just because of a new house. ;) 3) The wedding choice problem (from catering experience): anything can be changed. To meet your financial and time goals, only some things should be changed. Come up with some ruthless method of deciding which things are in which category. Expected enjoyment must be > change cost. 4) Work from major to minor changes. Structural changes -> orientation changes -> internal system changes. The former can impact the latter, resulting in cascades of changes. The latter rarely impact the former. 5) Do everything and anything you want in-wall that would make your life easier (insulation, conduit). This is trivial during construction when walls are open, and a pain in the ass after everything is sheetrocked. 6) Look at products like an engineer. Cost difference vs return (financial of according to your value metrics). Manufacturers have incentive to sell you everything under the sun; only some things make sense. Most things don't make sense. Make something prove itself, rather than starting from an assumption of change. 7) Find a quality builder and monitor them. Show up on site, know your plans, and check random things. Some builders will cut corners; they will cut fewer corners if they know you're watching. F.ex. don't let them bury construction debris in the foundation trench (will eventually settle). --- A hodgepodge of things I've realized are important: foundation[!!!] (basically can't be changed after house is built, easy to plus-size/prepare if in an area with concerns), insulation (if hot or cold climate), foundation drainage (if rainy climate: it's trivial to bury a proper PVC french drain+gravel or gutter drain during construction, and a pain[!!!] after), conduit (home runs to central data closet), joists sizing / stiffness (if you'll be there a long time, don't minimally-size floor joists, as they will weaken over time and lead to bouncy floors). Misc ideas: geothermal heating and cooling (if geology and temperature support), hybrid hot water heater (heat pump), natural gas heat appliances (incredibly cheap in terms of fuel)
thrower123 5y ago
Ideally out of a cannon, into the sun, before he had the chance to ugly up your project.
JasonFruit 5y ago
I just love this lady. Her letters are filled with a quirky, prickly personality that manages to remain businesslike. I wish she and Wright had ended up in a room together, with cameras running; their personalities would have been supremely entertaining to watch interact.
nonfamous 5y ago
There is a Frank Lloyd Wright “skyscraper” [1] you can stay in in Oklahoma. It was designed as an office building, not a hotel, but it’s immediately obvious when you stay in it that it’s impractical for just about any purpose. The rooms are triangle-shaped. Just let that sink in a minute. My favorite story from the tour was about the penthouse, which was intended as an office for the CEO of the company that commissioned the tower. The office chair was part of the design, and its the most uncomfortable (and immovable) metal abomination you’ve ever seen. FLW was so obsessed with the form of the desk, that he wouldn’t even allow a telephone to be placed on it — the owner had to retrofit one to be installed after the project was complete. His building look lovely, and he was very influential, but his residents paid the price for that influence. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_Tower?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_Tower?wprov=sfti1
- tfandango 5y ago
  very late to this story but I spent the night in the Price Tower in Bartlesville. It was cool to look at but pretty miserable to be in. The elevators are bizarrely shaped and custom, constantly break down. I remember the same office had a globe that Wright refused to let in since it was not cubical (and had to be sawed in half to get into the building). The shower was ridiculously tiny and inconvenient. It struck me as so weird that the guy designing the building seemed to be the one telling the guy paying for it what to do.

47 points by anarbadalov 5y ago

lukebutton 5y ago

Interesting piece

anovikov 5y ago

What i find surprising is that the world-renowned architect worked on projects as simple and cheap as that.

OldHand2018 5y ago
He spent a lot of time working to make “good” houses more affordable, and was constantly pushing the limits on materials and techniques, which is a large reason why his houses are such maintenance nightmares 70+ years later. https://beltmag.com/frank-lloyd-wright-affordable-housing-chicago/ https://beltmag.com/frank-lloyd-wright-affordable-housing-ch... > Capitalizing on Wright’s Prairie style, regarded as the first truly American style of architecture, the houses—of which there were seven to choose from—were promoted as the quintessential American home. Sherwood Anderson, the nationally acclaimed novelist who at the time was an unknown copywriter, wrote in 1917 for a Tribune ad, “We want you to understand how the genius of this man has made it possible for every home builder to build beautifully without spending more to achieve beauty than he now spends on senseless ugliness.”
- dtgriscom 5y ago
  There's no maintenance problems mentioned in the link; any other citations? (I have heard that Fallingwater has problems due to its wet environment...)
dakial1 5y ago
He probably wasn't. Notice that the communications were always by someone "representing" him, but the most probable isnthat he had an office with a lot of Jr architects who would work on those assignments (with some guidelines and templates done by him, or more senior architects). He probably thought he could scale up and get more volume (and steady revenue stream) working on those small/medium projects as the bigger ones are more rare (even for a big architect). This is an error. Consultancy (I work in the industry) are similar in method to the architecture office, as it depends a lot on people and there is not much you can do to scale up without having to scale your workforce. And even worse, small clients (as we see by the librarian in the story) are usually very high maintenance. For that reason consultancies don't like (or simply don't work) with startups, as they will have less revenue but more work per client, so the scale up is tricky.
- lelandfe 5y ago
  I visited Taliesin West and saw the huge focus on schooling that FLW had. During the tour I couldn't help but wonder if at least some of the designs attributed to him were instead performed by his students (many of whom were quite talented).
  - caturopath 5y ago
    Taliesin West is so strikingly beautiful -- it's one of the non-natural places I've been most visually captivated, though of course the surrounding and integrated landscape were of course a big part of it.
SilasX 5y ago
Side note: Wright is believed to have been the inspiration for the character of Howard Roark in the Fountainhead, whose arc involves him doing a gas station after a skyscraper because the station owner let him do the design how he (Roark) wanted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead#Howard_Roark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead#Howard_Roark
- adventured 5y ago
  Wright also did a sketch of a house for Rand, that she quite liked and they discussed having built [1]. Here is what Rand said in 1937 prior to The Fountainhead being published in a correspondance with Wright about her book (from an LA Times piece in 2009, linked [2] below): > In 1937 a little-known author named Ayn Rand wrote to revered modernist Frank Lloyd Wright. “Dear Mr. Wright,” her letter of Dec. 12 began, “I am writing a novel about the career of an architect. ... I should like to have the privilege of meeting you and discussing it with you.” > In “The Fountainhead,” modern architecture provided a convenient vehicle for her views. In her 1937 letter, she told Wright that her new novel “is to be the story of an architect who follows his own convictions throughout his life, no matter what society thinks of it or does to him. . . . A man who has an ideal and goes through hell for it. So you can understand why it seems to me that of all men on earth you are the one I must see.” > But she added: “My hero is not you. I do not intend to follow in the novel the events of your life and career. His life will not be yours, nor his work, perhaps not even his artistic ideals. But his spirit is yours -- I think.” [1] https://i.imgur.com/TgjvOjf.jpg https://i.imgur.com/TgjvOjf.jpg [2] https://archive.is/9s5iW https://archive.is/9s5iW
willyt 5y ago
Yep. It’s a mistake. People who want an architect designed house for the price of a kit house are going to be disappointed. Especially ones that have massive lists of new wonder products they have been sold on by adverts from manufacturers, they are a nightmare. He shouldn’t have taken the job at all or he should have replied straight away to the first detailed brief saying that it’s not possible. In the UK you can be struck off if you fumble this situation badly, I would imagine that it’s the same in the US?
runeb 5y ago
He saw it as a challenge. Here is a good podcast episode about it > Unsure of how to hook such an architect for their modest home, the Jacobses put it to him as a challenge: could he build them a nice house for $5,000 (around $85,000 in today’s dollars)? According to Jacobs, Wright responded that he had waited for decades for someone to ask him just that question. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/usonia/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/usonia/
- et2o 5y ago
  Thank you for this link! It's worth noting that an $85,000 house back then would be much more extravagent than an $85,000 house today as housing inflation has exceeded official inflation rates. Probably more like a 3-400,000 house if I had to guess. Still, an average house.

dekken_ 5y ago

so long already

ncmncm 5y ago

I would rather fire Frank Gehry.

pelagicAustral 5y ago

Very nice story. It rings a few bells now that I’m in process of designing my own house, and started doing research on materials, energy efficient homes, renewable energy, insulation, etc. It’s quite an experience, overwhelming at times.

ethbr0 5y ago
As someone who went through some years of architecture undergrad before changing majors, plus watched my dad draft changes to my childhood built home, a few notes. 1) Time costs money. Building time, change time. Custom increases build time, and plan changes increase engineer / architect time to recertify. Consequently, I would highly recommend starting from a base plan!! (The first exclamation mark I used to register serious recommendation; the second to indicate emphasis.) These plans can be purchased from many sellers, and are already code-compliant. Thus, your problem space can be windowed down to "What do I want to change from the pre-approved plans?" + "What needs be done to realize those changes?" With the remainder of the house being "as is" and requiring minimal plan work. This also avoids things becoming overwhelming, as the building starts "done." And should stay "done" (except for the part you're adjusting currently). 1b) Change expense is highly variable, because you're changing an approved system. Sometimes a wall movement will be no charge. Sometimes same will require a new microlam beam and redesigned joist system to realize. 2) Homes are personal. Architects design homes for a variety of reasons, some of which may overlap your personal needs. Think about how you will live in and use the space (as in, on an average Tuesday), and design for that. Assume you will not completely change your lifestyle just because of a new house. ;) 3) The wedding choice problem (from catering experience): anything can be changed. To meet your financial and time goals, only some things should be changed. Come up with some ruthless method of deciding which things are in which category. Expected enjoyment must be > change cost. 4) Work from major to minor changes. Structural changes -> orientation changes -> internal system changes. The former can impact the latter, resulting in cascades of changes. The latter rarely impact the former. 5) Do everything and anything you want in-wall that would make your life easier (insulation, conduit). This is trivial during construction when walls are open, and a pain in the ass after everything is sheetrocked. 6) Look at products like an engineer. Cost difference vs return (financial of according to your value metrics). Manufacturers have incentive to sell you everything under the sun; only some things make sense. Most things don't make sense. Make something prove itself, rather than starting from an assumption of change. 7) Find a quality builder and monitor them. Show up on site, know your plans, and check random things. Some builders will cut corners; they will cut fewer corners if they know you're watching. F.ex. don't let them bury construction debris in the foundation trench (will eventually settle). --- A hodgepodge of things I've realized are important: foundation[!!!] (basically can't be changed after house is built, easy to plus-size/prepare if in an area with concerns), insulation (if hot or cold climate), foundation drainage (if rainy climate: it's trivial to bury a proper PVC french drain+gravel or gutter drain during construction, and a pain[!!!] after), conduit (home runs to central data closet), joists sizing / stiffness (if you'll be there a long time, don't minimally-size floor joists, as they will weaken over time and lead to bouncy floors). Misc ideas: geothermal heating and cooling (if geology and temperature support), hybrid hot water heater (heat pump), natural gas heat appliances (incredibly cheap in terms of fuel)

thrower123 5y ago

Ideally out of a cannon, into the sun, before he had the chance to ugly up your project.

JasonFruit 5y ago

I just love this lady. Her letters are filled with a quirky, prickly personality that manages to remain businesslike. I wish she and Wright had ended up in a room together, with cameras running; their personalities would have been supremely entertaining to watch interact.

nonfamous 5y ago

There is a Frank Lloyd Wright “skyscraper” [1] you can stay in in Oklahoma. It was designed as an office building, not a hotel, but it’s immediately obvious when you stay in it that it’s impractical for just about any purpose. The rooms are triangle-shaped. Just let that sink in a minute. My favorite story from the tour was about the penthouse, which was intended as an office for the CEO of the company that commissioned the tower. The office chair was part of the design, and its the most uncomfortable (and immovable) metal abomination you’ve ever seen. FLW was so obsessed with the form of the desk, that he wouldn’t even allow a telephone to be placed on it — the owner had to retrofit one to be installed after the project was complete. His building look lovely, and he was very influential, but his residents paid the price for that influence. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_Tower?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_Tower?wprov=sfti1

tfandango 5y ago
very late to this story but I spent the night in the Price Tower in Bartlesville. It was cool to look at but pretty miserable to be in. The elevators are bizarrely shaped and custom, constantly break down. I remember the same office had a globe that Wright refused to let in since it was not cubical (and had to be sawed in half to get into the building). The shower was ridiculously tiny and inconvenient. It struck me as so weird that the guy designing the building seemed to be the one telling the guy paying for it what to do.